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Death knight builds
''Instructions to WoWWiki editors: In order to keep this page precise and concise, please DO NOT add complete builds here. For those who are interested in contributing their own builds, please add them to the Death knight build samples. Any build that has over 52 points will be moved to the Death knight build samples. '' Blood Talents in this tree focus on physical damage-dealing abilities, such as Blood Presence. Any build that has over 52 points will be moved to the Death knight build samples. If you spec your talents in the Blood tree, your style of play will have two defining features. The first is that your main attack uses only one rune, resulting in you doing more attacks albeit less strong. The second is that, in comparison to the other trees, a large amount of your damage is physical and not magical. Blood PvE builds Blood PvP builds While most of the core talents of a PvE Blood build is still useful in PvP, PvP Blood Death Knights need several more talents to enhance their survivability from enemy players and help to defeat them. These include - Most users wouldn't use Blood for PvP, mainly because you are easily kited around. Personally I would disagree, Blood can be kited but with the right rotation on CD's you should be able to get back in. Blood has a very high ability to stay alive with its own heals like Vampiric Blood, Rune Tap, and Mark of Blood. Blood is a rogue and feral druid killer, since they really cant do anything to you with your constant heals and wearing plate. It's not good to spec into full Blood for PvP (trust me, its not good) and Unholy would power up your spells and diseases like Death Coil and Icy Touch. So, to get the most out of your melee, the only option really is going hybrid to frost. Speccing down to Annihilation would be your best bet, since you can burst it with Empowered Rune Weapon without having to worry about losing the bonus damage from your diseases. Making the choice from either Killing Machine or Runic Power Mastery, you'll either get 6 secs on your Dancing Rune Weapon, or you can auto-crit with Icy Touch if they get out of range, which does make a difference. From there, stop putting points into Frost and focus back on the Blood tree. Spec all the way to Dancing Rune Weapon for the instant death on someone, and make sure to pick up Vampiric Blood and Hysteria. IMO stay out of Blood Worms because Blizzard has yet to make them useful, and stay out of Vendetta because it's not worth 3 points for something that has a 5% chance on keeping you alive, if you're dealing with a caster or pally. So - big hits, melee hits, short range, and heal yourself. Blood Leveling Builds 3.1.0 [http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfEMqh0Isf0zzAo Basic PvE Leveling Spec Level 61 (52/0/0)] A Blood Death Knight will rely on physical damage while having above average self-healing abilities to improve survivability. This is more obvious with investing in Vampiric Blood and Rune Tap, and as you level up Improved Rune Tap. You will gain expertise and strength bonuses by investing in Veteran of the Third War, Abomination's Might, and Blood Gorged. However, a Blood Death Knight will shine the best when combining his Death Strike with Bloody Strikes, Dark Conviction, Subversion and Might of Mograine — even more when the Death Knight has Glyph of Death Strike and take full advantage of Blood Gorged by keeping himself at full health the majority of time. Example of useful rotations: :Plague Strike -> Icy Touch -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Obliterate -> Death Coil -> Plague Strike -> Icy Touch -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Death Coil :Icy Touch -> Plague Strike -> Death Strike -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Death Coil -> Obliterate -> Icy Touch -> Plague Strike -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Death Coil -> Obliterate -> Death Coil Suggested Major Glyphs :Glyph of Death Strike :Glyph of Vampiric Blood Suggested Minor Glyphs :Glyph of Pestilence :Glyph of Horn of Winter '''Please see the Death knight build samples page for more helpful Blood Build Samples Frost Talents in this tree focus on spells and control, such as Frost Presence. Frost is a tree built for critical burst damage. This can be seen in the tree's talents. '''Any build that has over 52 points will be moved to the Death knight build samples. The advantage of specing frost is the large amount of damage that is done that is spell damage. This spell damage has the advantage over physical attacks of by-passing armor mitigation (Unholy does even more of its damage as spell damage). If you are after large numbers, Frost is for you as it has the big hit abilities, though this is averaged out over the abilities to ensure that overall the damage is in line with other specs. Frost PvE builds 3.1.0 Frost DPS Skeleton Frost death knight DPS is based around Obliterate, Blood Strike and Frost Strike on the main target, with Howling Blasts for AOE or when the death knight cannot get close. Blood Strike is used mainly to convert Blood Runes into Death Runes that can be used to Obliterate or Howling Blast next time around the rotation. Hungering Cold is generally a good solo and tanking talent, though also has specialized uses for DPS, like infecting a large group with frost fever before unleashing a howling blast or holding adds. There are two main choices for where to put the rest of the points. One is to put them mostly in Blood and take Dark Conviction, Bladed Armor and Killing Machine The other is to go Unholy for Outbreak BCB and Necrosis. (Link Fix, Info Update) Frost PvP builds While most of the core talents of a PvE Frost build is still useful in PvP, PvP Frost Death Knights need several more talents to enhance their survivability from enemy players and help to defeat them. These include - pvp skeleton Let's talk about the frost way in PvP and see why we are the best. What is PvP about? First, we need damage burst and frost has plenty of that. Second we need ranged attacks and frost has decent ranged attacks. Let's look at the frost talents and see which are good for PvP and which are not. *Improved Icy Touch : Sooo good. Improved damage and lower your opponent's attack speed. A must have. *Glacier Rot : more enhanced damage with only one drawback is that your target must ALWAYS have frost fever. *Toughness : Useless. This is for tanks. *Icy reach : A must have, this allows you to become better at range. *Black Ice : Improves the damage of your Icy Touch, Howling Blast and Frost Strike. Max it.. *Nerves of Cold Steel : Useless. DKs need to use 2 handed weapons because a great part of our attacks use a percent damage of our main weapon, so we need the most damaging weapon (not the best dps, the most damaging). In PvP you will rarely even land a melee auto-attack, only the special attacks are important. *Icy Talons : Not so good not so bad, melee haste is a good thing BUT, we rarely land auto-attacks, so this talent is not mandatory. But you can put some point here if you have some. *Lichborne : Ohhh yes. +25% avoidance and immune to all fear and maybe to sap. You must definitely have this. *Annihilation : Not so good , not so bad, the critical attack increase is very welcome but the bonus to Obliterate is very dependent of the use you have of this attack. Personally I don't use it, but if you do, you can put points here. *Runic Power Mastery : Can be useful in pvp to stock runic power on a weak target and to release them all on a tough one or later. *Killing Machine : Could be excellent but you need to land melee attack for this to work and this does not occur so often. *Frigid Dreadplate : Useless, this is for tanks. *Chill of the Grave : More runic power is never bad to take, but not imperative. *Deathchill : A free critical every 2 minutes. Take it. *Improved Icy Talons : If you have put five points in Icy Talons then put one more here. Otherwise not important. *Merciless Combat : More damage when target is close to death. good especially to finish healers with a critical, but not imperative. *Rime : Bonus on Icy Touch is a must and a free howling blast is very good. Bonus on Obliterate depends on the use you make of this attack. *Endless Winter : Free Mind Freezes and required for Chillblains. Take it. *Howling Blast : Your second ranged attack : Mandatory, just take it. *Frost Aura : Not obligatory but this lowers the chance that spell have to land on you alot. *Chillblains : Adds 30% slow movement on all target with frost fever and in PvP movement is everything. Take it. *Blood of the North : Not bad. Allows you to use blood runes to cast much more useful Icy Touches and Howling Blasts, but you need to land Blood Strikes first to do it. *Unbreakable Armor : Unneeded, this is for tanks. *Acclimation : Same as frost aura, this prevents spells from hurting you a lot and as your opponent will very often use spells you should have it. *Frost Strike : Convert runic power into instant attacks, very good and you must definitely have it. With Icy Touch and Howling Blast, this will be your bread and butter. *Guile of Gorefiend : Increases critical strike damage by 45% on the two the abilities you use most often. Take it *Tundra Stalker : More damage on targets with frost fever. Good to take. *Hungering Cold : Very good for skilled players, allows you to crowd control when multiple players are on you, and to stop a flag run. Spend all remaining points in blood to reach Rune tap and maybe Improved Rune Tap. Frost Leveling Builds 3.1.0 [http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#jZG0xxA0ckfzi0st Basic PvE Leveling (2H (0/52/0)] As stated before, a Frost Death Knight will rely on spells, control and burst damage, for that Icy Talons is a must; Annihilation also is needed so you can use Obliterate in your rotation for high damage without consuming the diseases on the target. Deathchill is preferred over Hungering Cold at this point for any melee hit will unfreeze the targets and Howling Blast will be your AoE bread and butter attack. Avoid attacks that use much runic power until you can spend some points into Runic Power Mastery in the Frost Tree or Butchery in the Blood Tree. Example of useful rotations: :Plague Strike -> Icy Touch -> Blood Strike -> Blood Strike -> Obliterate -> Frost Strike -> Icy Touch -> Obliterate -> Obliterate -> Frost Strike :Icy Touch -> Plague Strike -> Blood Strike -> Blood Strike -> Obliterate --> Frost Strike -> Obliterate -> Icy Touch -> Plague Strike -> Obliterate -> Frost Strike -> Obliterate -> Frost Strike -> Obliterate Suggested Major Glyphs :Glyph of Icebound Fortitude :Glyph of Frost Strike :Glyph of Death Strike Suggested Minor Glyphs :Glyph of Pestilence :Glyph of Horn of Winter '''Please see the Death knight build samples page for more helpful Frost Build Samples. Dual Wielding Frost is generally considered the only tree viable for dual wielding. The reason being that all 'strikes' such as Heart Strike, Scourge Strike, Obliterate, etc are heavily dependent on weapon damage, and only the main hand weapon is taken into account. The only talent based attack that is not based on weapon damage is Howling Blast, so it only really makes sense to base dual wield DPS builds around that. Dual Wield Skeleton When dual wielding your auto-attack damage will increase, while your special attack damage decreases. The general strategy is to pick up all talents that increase auto-attack damage or that proc on auto-attacks, and that improve Howling Blast. Must-have talents for a dual wield build are: *Howling Blast *Nerves of Cold Steel *Killing Machine *Icy Talons From here it is the player's choice to take extra talents in Blood or Unholy. In Blood Bladed Armor and Dark Conviction are good choices. In Unholy Necrosis and Blood-caked Blade are excellent choices to boost auto-attack damage. Unholy Talents in this tree have a variety of functions including summons, diseases, and PvP-focused abilities, such as Unholy Presence. Any build that has over 52 points will be moved to the Death knight build samples. Unholy has two defining features as DPS. The first is that it has many talents that improve your area of effect damage significantly. On any multi-mob fights Unholy has a significant advantage. The second is that Unholy, out of the three talent trees, has the highest percentage of damage as spell damage. Unholy Death Knights will thus find that they have a distinct advantage on any fights against mobs with high armor. Unholy PvE builds Unholy PvP builds While most of the core talents of a PvE Unholy build is still useful in PvP, PvP Unholy Death Knights need several more talents to enhance their survivability from enemy players and help to defeat them. These include - Unholy leveling builds 3.1.0 [http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jZZfM0IbrkxcqMcsuu Basic PvE Leveling spec Level 61 (0/0/52)] Notable talents and why: *Scourge Strike is the center of your build. *Vicious Strikes to upgrade your Scourge Strike *Epidemic to not waste time reapplying diseases if Glyph of Scourge Strike doesn't proc. *On a Pale Horse because getting to and from quest areas 20% faster is great. *Summon Gargoyle is a major damage talent. *Master of Ghouls to make your pet permanent. *Unholy Aura because +15% movement speed increase is great while grinding mobs that aren't densely packed. *Crypt Fever counts as an extra disease, which greatly increases the damage of all your strikes. Actually one of the best talents in the tree, though it doesn't seem it at first. *Ebon Plaguebringer increases all shadow and frost damage you do, which includes Scourge Strike! Example of useful rotations: :Plague Strike -> Icy Touch -> Death Strike -> Blood Boil -> Blood Boil -> Obliterate :Icy Touch -> Plague Strike -> Scourge Strike -> Blood Strike -> Blood Strike -> Death Coil -> Scourge Strike -> Death Coil -> Scourge Strike -> Scourge Strike -> Death Coil :Plague Strike -> Icy Touch -> Blood Strike -> Blood Strike -> Scourge Strike -> Scourge Strike -> Scourge Strike -> Scourge Strike -> Death Coil Suggested Glyphs * * * * * * Alternative * * Please see the Death knight build samples page for more helpful Unholy Build Samples. Tanking See Death Knights as Tanks for more info. Any build that has over 52 points will be moved to the Death knight build samples. Even though each of the 3 trees is capable of tanking, that is only true if you have the appropriate talents within your tree. Tier 1 tanking talents are available to everyone: Blade Barrier, Anticipation, and Toughness. Then, depending on what tree you specialize in, you can pick up additional tanking talents. Blood tanking Blood Tank Skeleton Notable talents in the Blood tree are: *Blade Barrier *Vampiric Blood *Veteran of the Third War - excellent value per point for tanking. *Will of the Necropolis *Rune Tap *Mark of Blood *Spell Deflection Blood tanks use Heart Strike as their primary strike, with Death Strike as their second. Blood tanks have good single (and double thanks to heart strike) target threat but are lacking in true AOE threat. Blood Tanks have the advantage that Death Strike is a part of their standard rotation, giving passive healing at no loss of threat. Note that Death Strike healing is no longer linked to damage, so their Death Strike healing is no more powerful despite their talents that upgrade the damage. Blood Gorged is not recommended because you will not be at full health most of the time. Dancing Rune Weapon is considered a poor tanking talent. Blood Worms and Improved Blood Presence are an effective way of healing solo, but their healing per second is insignificant in comparison to the damage taken when tanking instances. Frost tanking Frost Tank Skeleton Notable talents in the Frost tree are: *Toughness *Improved Icy Touch *Unbreakable Armor *Frigid Dreadplate *Guile of Gorefiend - greatly improves Icebound Fortitude. *Howling Blast - great instant AOE threat ability. *Hungering Cold *Lichborne - allows limited self-healing with Death Coils. *Tundra Stalker - for expertise. The Frost tree has the best physical mitigation talents of the three. Big bonuses to Obliterate give decent single target threat, alternatively Howling Blast can be used for AOE threat. Frost Strike is a major upgrade over Death Coil for dumping runic power for even more single target threat. Hungering Cold is a situational tanking ability. This talent was previously skipped by many raid tanks, but now that Hungering Cold is not a 51-point talent it can now be taken with little effort. Frost Tanks are particularly notable for their ability to generate instant aggro on packs of mobs with Howling Blast, and at a 20 (upgradable to 30) yard range. This makes them very good at picking up adds that spawn on some encounters. Acclimation is generally considered a poor investment for magic mitigation because there are few enemies that cast spells at you often enough to be sure of keeping the three stacks up, though there are of course exceptions. Unholy tanking Unholy Tank Skeleton Notable talents in the Unholy tree are: *Anticipation *Morbidity - HALVES the cooldown on Death and Decay. *Bone Shield *Crypt Fever/Ebon Plague - counts as an extra disease, which increases Death Strike healing. *Magic Suppression *Anti-Magic Zone - situational but when it's useful it's usually very very useful. *Unholy Blight - excellent AOE threat *Wandering Plague - more AOE threat *Master of Ghouls - you're much more likely to have him around when you really need to Death Pact. *Rage of Rivendare - for expertise. Unholy tanks have far and away the best sustained AOE threat abilities of the three, with upgraded diseases, Unholy Blight, Corpse Explosion and faster Death and Decays. Unholy tanks will have a greatly improved Death Strike for healing, but Scourge Strike is not as strong as the competition, so single target threat generation is lower than the others. Unholy tanks have excellent magic mitigation if they invest in Magic Suppression and Anti-Magic Zone. See also * Death knight build samples: Contains WoWWiki users submitted complete death knight builds. Category:Guides Category:Death knight talents Category:Wrath of the Lich King